“Not really,” he said, but I saw in his expression that he didn’t wholly trust me. Marse’s stroke had started to falter. The tide was probably coming in, canceling her efforts. She could have swum all night just to keep the stilt house in sight.
“Dennis,” I said. I thought he should have been doing something.
“She’ll get tired,” he said.
“She won’t,” said Kyle. When Marse tilted her head to breathe between strokes, her face was very red. Quietly, Kyle said to me, “Tell her you’re sorry.”
I cupped my hands around my mouth. “Marse,” I called, “I’m a lousy lookout—”
“Not that,” Kyle said.
I wondered if Kyle was particularly astute, or if I had been—if Dennis and I had been—particularly transparent. And I wondered how I’d gotten myself into this situation. Less than forty-eight hours from now, I thought, I’ll be back in Atlanta, thinking that I kissed a boy I barely knew and hurt a girl who’d been nice to me. “Marse,” I called again, “I’m going home tomorrow.” She slowed, then treaded water. “I’m going home tomorrow,” I said again, “but if you drown, I’ll have to stick around.”
The tactic was plain; it embarrassed us both. “Big deal,” she said.
“Get in the boat,” said Dennis.
Marse looked away, toward Miami, then ahead at the stilt house, blue with evening. When finally she swam to the boat, her stroke had returned and her breathing was even. She sat at the prow without drying herself off, and Kyle sat beside her. They passed a beer back and forth and I watched them from the stern, holding my towel with both arms around my chest, clutching the solid, loyal edges of myself.
Dennis’s father, Grady, had built his family’s stilt house in 1945, when Dennis was just two years old. The idea came from a local fisherman named “Crawfish” Eddie Walker, who constructed a shack in shallow water in Biscayne Bay and became legendary for the fresh chowder he sold to passing boaters. Grady had friends who followed Eddie’s lead. By the time Grady secured the funds and manpower to build his own shack, several more had sprouted, including a men’s club called the Quarterdeck. By 1960, Stiltsville comprised twenty-seven shacks, but then the Quarterdeck burned in a fire and hurricane Donna leveled all but six of the other buildings. Many of the squatters, including Grady, rebuilt, and the new houses were cottage-style, larger and sturdier, designed to withstand all but the most devastating squall. Then in 1965, responding to complaints from Key Biscayne residents who claimed that Stiltsville ruined their ocean view, the state of Florida issued private leases for plots of submerged land. After hurricane Betsy hit that year, fourteen houses were left standing, and the state stopped issuing new leases and banned commercial ventures altogether. Grady was, by this point, Stiltsville’s semi-official mayor—he kept the paperwork up-to-date and mediated grievances between stilt house owners and the state, or between owners and each other.
Dennis was twenty-six years old when I met him, same as me. He’d lived in Miami all his life, as I’d lived in the Atlanta area all of mine. After graduating from college, he’d worked for a sailing company that hauled tourists on sunset cruises. He’d lived briefly with a girl named Peggy on a yawl moored at Dinner Key marina, but she’d grown weary of the waterlogged life and moved to Boca Raton to become a travel agent. He’d missed her for a long time. He’d quit his job and spent six months in Spain with his high school friend Paul, touring and living on fried fish from street vendors. Then he’d returned to Miami to attend law school, and moved into a small apartment on Miami Beach. He liked school but wasn’t crazy about the prospect of being a lawyer; he hoped an affection for law would come with the diploma. He knew Marse was after him and he liked her and considered having sex with her, but the thought of what would happen afterward made him feel unkind. He spent at least one weekend a month alone at the stilt house. On land, he studied in diners and took long drives at night, often ending up in the lounge of the Key Largo airport, where they served the best conch fritters in the state. Sometimes he thought about buying a house in Coconut Grove or Coral Gables—he couldn’t imagine living anywhere except South Florida—but he made no promises to himself. He liked his small beachfront apartment.